Community Engaged Department Institute and Grant Program

Team members: Dr. Pamela Bell, Dr. Gigi Morales David, Dr. Elizabeth Fullerton, Dr. Katrina Hall 

Childhood Education is focusing on the program area of Pre-K/Primary Education as its starting point for integrating CBTL across the curriculum.  The program area of Pre-K/Primary Education is spending their time in the Program creating explicit partnerships for students to perform coursework and volunteer hours with.  Students will experience CBTL throughout eight required courses and 30 hours of civic engagement volunteer work.  The Pre-K/Primary team also hopes to increase CBTL-based research amongst their faculty.   

Team members:  Dr. Chitra L. K. Balasubramanian, Ms. Alice Krauss, Dr. Ann Noonan, Ms. Dawn Saracino, Dr. Russell Smith, Ms. Donni Welch Rawls 

The Department of Clinical & Applied Movement Sciences is focused on the incorporation of CBTL into their graduate program by partnering with Brooks Adaptive Sports and Recreation Program.  The plan includes integrating three required CBTL-designated courses and an optional "service learning track" in the student curriculum. The plan includes a vision for integration of CBTL into the curriculum at the undergraduate level as well.  

Team members: Dr. Catherine Christie, Dr. Nancy Correa-Matos, Ms. Karen Landry, Dr. Judy Perkin, Dr. Judith Rodriguez, Mr. Stephen Sepe, Ms. Jackie Shank, Dr. Lauri Wright 

The Department of Nutrition plans to incorporate CBTL experiences into four of their core undergraduate courses.  Over the course of the program, the target is to increase individual student's participation in the community to at least 60 hours prior to graduation.  The team also plans to expand the department's community relationships and provide need assessments for their current community partners to ensure long-term, sustainable programming.

Team members: Dr. Lori Lange, Dr. Juliana Leding, Dr. Rebecca Marcon, Dr. Dan Richard, Dr. Jennifer Santos, Dr. Michael Toglia 

The Department of Psychology's primary focus is to increase their levels of community outreach and volunteerism as well as community-based instruction.  The intention is to provide every Psychology graduate with at least one CBTL experience as part of a course.  The team has collected an inventory of their current community partnerships and plans to strategically expand the department's relationships and enhance partner communication

Team members: Dr. Gordon Rakita, Dr. Adam Shapiro, Dr. Suzanne Simon, Dr. Jennifer Spaulding-Givens, Dr. JeffriAnne Wilder, Ms. LaTanya Wynn 

The Department of Sociology & Anthropology includes the program areas of Anthropology, Sociology and Social Work. The department plans to formalize the CBTL opportunities, particularly with regards to community-based research and internships, throughout each of the three disciplines.  The department's vision includes creating a culture of engagement for both students and faculty.

Team members:  Dr. Jeffery Cornett, Dr. Wanda Lastrapes, Dr. Richard Chant, Dr. John White, Dr. Brian Zoellner, Dr. Madalina Tanase, Ms. Lashanda Roberts, Ms. Melissa Osborn, Ms. Kelly Wood 

Realizing that pre-service teachers learn best when they can connect educational theory and research with classroom practice overseen by highly-qualified professional educators, the Department of Foundations and Secondary Education has decided to revamp its community-based learning experiences.  The team is working with teachers at Sandalwood High School to create a strong, mutually-advantageous, community-based field experience model for lower-and upper level UNF courses grounded in empirically supported professional dispositions, pedagogical content knowledge, and discipline-specific content knowledge.  This realignment pays special attention to providing pre-service teachers with opportunities to define, reflect upon, and value diversity.  In an effort to allow for and incite transformation, the restructured framework builds in an electronic portfolio for students to reflect on their professional dispositions, pedagogical content knowledge, and discipline-specific content knowledge as they make their way through the program.   

Team members: Dr. Karen Patterson, Dr. Susan Syverud, Dr. Sherry Shaw, Dr. Caroline Guardino, Dr. Debbie Reed 

The Department of Exceptional Student and Deaf Education is focused on building a more cohesive and systematic CBTL experience for students that reinforces the mission of the department – to prepare highly qualified teaching and interpreting candidates with the knowledge, skills, dispositions, and cultural/linguistic competencies to meet the diverse educational and accessibility needs of children and adults in educational and community settings.  Their plan is to refine already existing CBTL opportunities and, in some cases, create new CBTL opportunities to maximize the impact the civic engagement has on students.  Establishing CBTL experiences throughout the program will ultimately create a departmental culture of connectedness, involve students in community research, and re-center programs around populations our students will eventually serve as professionals.    

Team members: Dr. Bert Koegler, Dr. Erinn Gilson, Dr. Mitchell Haney, Dr. Alissa Hurwitz Swota, Dr. Jason Zinser 

The Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies is developing a framework for community-based instruction and research that effectively addresses the mission and goals of both the department as a whole and its diverse individual programs.  Team members will focus their attention on two courses - Applied Ethics, and Social and Political Thought - because the topics discussed in these domains include the most pressing and important issues of our current societies.  The goal is to use community-based learning to make the skills and content of these disciplines socially and culturally relevant.  To do this, team members are working to develop a coherent understanding of the role of community engagement in the context of the Department's overall curricular offerings.  Armed with this knowledge, they will begin the process of redesigning these courses.